WCP5542

Letter (WCP5542.6300)

[1]1

Capetown. C[ape]. [of] G[ood] H[ope].

20 Jan[uary]. [18]’972

My dear Friend

I recognize urgency in two (2) missives respecting the areas covered by Cape Botanists, and I have sent today a mere rough copy without typing it in better form. Perhaps I should have left out a few lines had it been thus revised, but as it is only raw material the recasting & selection here, is no great matter.

For Zeyher3, Drege4[sic], and the older men, gave[?] all my material in a usable form in the "Personalia". For friend Bolus5, he, doubtless will have given you an account of himself: I do not know precisely what his movements have been during the last few years while I was being eaten up by the Garden7 and the cultural side of the Agric[ultural]. Dep[artmen]t. But his cover is I believe something thus: Graaf Reinet6 a close beating up, forays to Compasberg7 [sic] northw[ar]d. and one due south to [1 word illeg.] & Port Elizabeth8, once to Vanstadensberg9 with me, whence he brought but little. Cape Peninsula very thoroughly, particularly the Eastern side of the Table M[oun]t[ain]10. mass, very little on the North & Western side. Cape Flats11, [1 word illeg.] wh[ere]. he lives, of course: thence to Piquetberg12, Tulbagh-Winterhoek13, the Drakensteen [sic] M[oun]t[ain]s.14 behind Stellenbosch15 & Paarl16, Bain’s Kloof17. Of course his Nama’[qua]land18 expedition, and later journey to Lorenzo [sic] Marques19 & up country to Barberton20. More recently the memorable trip with H. G. Flanagan21 to the Mont aux Sources22

[2] and now his trip with Guthrie23 to Knysna24 & Mossel Bay25[.] I think that this rough enumeration covers most of his collecting, but my knowledge of his comings & goings is disjointed & partial. He lives out at Kenilworth26, half an hour up the line, and I cannot break a day of office duty to run over at my own expense to find him perhaps out or busy with Guthrie. So I seldom see him except when he comes in a hurry to identify a plant just before catching his train home. It is a pity we are not brought more in touch by locality and circumstance.

The memo[random] about Lagos Raffia27 shall go into the A. J.28 But we have no means of communicating with that Paradise of the Black Man29, were we ever so desirous of giving him a commercial leg up. Did I ever tell you how the pious Philistines of Tamatave30 tried to "do" me over Raffia & were themselves done in the loveliest manner? I fancy not. There is a holy firm, a missionary Co[mpany]., to whom I wrote ordering one measurement ton of raffia for the garden7 i.e. 40 cubic feet. They sent me a ton by weight, & drew on me for the amount. I was obliged to pass entry & land the lot, pay duty &c. otherwise we couldn[’]t get the one bale we needed badly. Took one bale, 40 c[ubic]. f[ee]t. & lodged the rest in the Queen’s warehouse as shipper’s risk & charges, handed over the receipts to the bank who held the bill presentable & paid the value of the bale accepted. My! There was a holy row. End of it was shippers had to pay me considerably more than the value of the bale for charges in handling the surplus & then had no remedy but to reship it for sale in England! So it doesn’t always do to be too cute, even if you are pious.

I find I sent a duplicate photo[graph] of the clever[?] [3] Cotyledon31; pray send it on to somebody who will value it.

Marloth32 has faked Edwards’33 little botany-crammer for Cape use. I should have better liked a Cape version of Gray’s34 Lessons35, of course brought up to date, and, oh dear — without the ubiquitous Sachs’36 woodcuts, which, for little learners, are depressing & puzzling in the extreme. It is quite necessary to learn the multiplication table, but one ought not to be bothered with the Differential calculus at the same times.

Faithfully | P. MacOwan [signature]

Wallace has, I hear, caught it hot from some Johannesburg newspaper critics. But his Edinburgh friends also wop him handsomely. He is scheming a trip to Westralia37 now.

1
"Ans[were]d. 9.2.97" written in ink across top LH corner of page. The letter bears the stamp "ROYAL GARDENS KEW with the date 8. FEB. 97" in the centre top of the page.
2
Year deduced from birth and death dates of author.
3
Zeyher, Karl Ludwig Philipp (1799-1858), botanical and insect collector who collected extensively in South Africa He was the author, with Christian Friedrich Ecklon of Enumeratio Plantarum Africae Australis (1835-7), a descriptive catalogue of South African plants.
4
Drège, Fran(t)z (or Jean François) (1794-1881) German horticulturalist, botanical collector and explorer of Hugenot descent. In 1826 he travelled with his younger brother, Eduard, to join his older brother, Carl, in the Cape, where they established themselves as professional natural history collectors — Franz on botanical specimens. Their contract with their European contacts expired in 1826 and they decided to launch their own business.
5
Bolus, Harry (1834-1911) South African botanist, botanical artist, businessman and philanthropist. He advanced botany in South Africa by establishing bursaries, founding the Bolus Herbarium and bequeathing his library and a large part of his fortune to the South African College (now the University of Cape Town).
6
A town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, the fourth oldest town in the country.
7
Compassberg is a mountain peak of the Sneeuberge range in South Africa, located 55 km due north of Graaf-Reinet (see Endnote 8) in the Eastern Cape. At 2504 m, it is the highest peak in South Africa outside the Stormberg-Drakensberg massif.
8
One of the largest cities in South Africa, situated in the Eastern Cape Province, 770 km east of Cape Town.
9
Mountains 40 km west of Port Elizabeth. The Van Stadens area contains a number of endemic plant species.
10
A flat-topped mountain (height 1085 m) forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa
11
Expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town.
12
Now known as Piketberg, a town in the Western Cape, South Africa, in the foothills of the Piketberg mountain range north of Cape Town.
13
The Groot Winterhoek mountains are located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Part of the Cape Fold belt, they rise to a maximum height of 2077 m just north of the town of Tulbagh, as Groot Winterhoek peak.
14
The Drakenstein ("Dragonstone") Mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
15
A town in the Western Cape province of South Africa situated about 50 km east of Cape Town. It is the second oldest European settlement in the province, after Cape Town.
16
A town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third oldest town and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa and the largest town in the Cape Winelands.
17
Bains Kloof Pass is situated in the Western Cape province of South Africa between Wellington and Ceres. This 30 km pass was completed in 1853.
18
Nama are an African ethnic group of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, the largest group of the Khoikhoi people, most of whom have largely disappeared as a group. Many of the Nama clans live in Central Namibia and the other smaller groups live in Namaqualand which today straddles the Namibian border with South Africa.
19
Lourenço Marques before independence, now known as Maputo, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique.
20
A town in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, situated in the De Kaap Valley and fringed by the Makhonjwa Mountains, 360 kilometres to the east of Johannesburg.
21
Flanagan, Henry George (1861-1919) South African-born collector, traveller and farmer who owned Prospect Farm in the Komga District of Eastern Cape. He developed a renowned garden for native South African trees and rare exotic plants. A rare endemic of Eastern Cape, Greyia flanaganii Bolus is one of several plants named in his honour.
22
A mountain in Southern Africa, forming one of the highest portions of the Drakensberg Range (3282 m). It is mostly within Lesotho, with parts in the KwaZulu-Natal and Free State provinces.
23
Guthrie, Francis (1831-1899) South African mathematician and botanist. He was mathematics master at the Graaf-Reinet College and in1862 started a lifelong friendship with local resident Harry Bolus (see Endnote 6). When Bolus left for Cape Town in 1875, Guthrie moved there as well. When Bolus undertook to do the family of Ericaceae for Flora Capensis, they collaborated until Guthrie's death.
24
A town on the Southern Cape (Garden Route) in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
25
A harbour town on the Southern Cape (or Garden Route), in the Western Cape province of South Africa, 400 km east of Cape Town and 400 km west of Port Elizabeth.
26
A suburb of Cape Town, South Africa.
27
The Raffia palms, constitute a genus Raphia in the family Arecaceae, native to tropical regions of Africa. Long thin fibres stripped from the underside frond leaves can be dyed and woven as a textile. The raffia palm is important in societies such as the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, of which Lagos is the major port city.
28
Unidentified journal.
29
Nigeria.
30
Tamatave (now known as Toamasina) is the capital of the Atsinana region on the east coast of Madagascar on the Indian Ocean.
31
Part of the embryo within the seed of a plant. Upon germination, the cotyledon may become the embryonic first leaves of a seedling. It is not clear to which species this refers.
32
Marloth, Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf (1855-1931) German-born South African botanist, pharmacist and analytical chemist, best known for his Flora of South Africa which appeared in six illustrated volumes between 1913 and 1932.
33
Probably Edwards, Sydenham Teast (1768-1819) Welsh natural history illustrator. He produced plates for a number of botanical publications, including the Botanical Register, which he edited 1815-1819. The "crammer" referred to is not identified.
34
Gray, Asa (1810-1888) Professor of Botany at Harvard University, considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His book Darwiniana was also considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
35
Gray, A. (1877) Gray's Lessons in botany and vegetable physiology : illustrated by over 360 wood engravings from original drawings by Isaac Sprague : to which is added a copious glossary, or dictionary of botanical terms. New York, Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co.
36
Sachs, Julius von (1832-1897) German botanist, best known for his work in plant physiology, especially the germination of plants. His Lectures on the Physiology of Plants Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887 contains some 455 woodcuts.
37
A common contraction of Western Australia.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP5542.6300)]

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Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP5542,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5542